Mum.

I have had animals most of my life. Either a cat or a dog. My Husband has had dogs all of his life! He is a real animal person. A true dog lover.

Soon after we got married, we had slowly built up to at one point 6 cats and 6 dogs, they all got on, it was a busy household, and then our first child came along, Daniel. Four of the dogs at that time had to go, as our lovely next-door neighbour Barrie was trying to sell his house, that he rented out. He threatened to take us to court, if we didn’t get rid of at least four of the noisy dogs! I was secretly very pleased as 6 noisy dogs was far too many. Paul gave four away to good homes.

Mary who lived a few doors away from us, she was single with two huge in-door cats they were her children. She would feed her own cats and our 6 cats too. When her 2 large cats died, all 6 of our cats left us, for chicken and fish every day! They didn’t even have to go outside again for the loo, they were treated like kings and queens! In Mary’s lovely home, the cats were first in her life. And over the years, she would keep us informed, of their health and eventual deaths. Today we have 6 different cats, and two dogs. Family life with animals is busy, and hard work.

Yesterday, there was a knock at the door, the young lad from next door said, “Would you like some kittens?” I said, “Live ones?” For I have never in my life, have someone knock the door and ask me that. He said, “Yes, my Mum is there, I stepped out and looked at my lovely neighbour she had the mobile in her hand, and she said, in broken English, “Three kittens, here, husband on phone.” I said, “No thank you, we already have 6 cats.” She said, “OK.”

Thirty minutes later when Paul came in from having a cigarette, he said, to me, “The man next door, just arrived home and asked me,” “Do you want 6 kittens?” I told him, “No thank you we already have 6 cats.”

Back indoors we discussed it between us, we wondered what had happened to the Mum? We wondered how tiny or big the kittens were? We wondered if they were healthy or underweight?

One thing is sure, IF we didn’t have any cats, we would have had all 6 kittens!

We would have done a Mary! I wish the 6 little ones all the best and hope they go to good homes. x